A maturity model provides a qualitative assessment of where your group sits in relation to some ideal pinnacle of evolution. I suppose the people who come up with these models are business school academics and committees of senior professionals. I’m not aware that anyone’s developed such a thing for the field of Advancement Operations, so allow me to pretend to be smarter than I am – and propose one.
When I do a search on “operations maturity model,” the two dominant themes I see in the results are IT and process. IT is wide of the mark for us. “Process” is closer.
Yet a process focus is still too limited. In process-based models, maturity entails evolving from ad-hoc activities to development of repeatable processes, on up through levels of better definition of processes until one reaches the top level, where processes are optimized.
This is an industrial definition of maturity, where the ultimate goal for operations is efficiency. In a mission-driven organization, efficiency is desirable, but not as desirable as the overall effectiveness of the organization. We can be efficient at doing the wrong things.
Advancement isn’t a factory. Advancement needs all teams, including the so-called back office, to help separate the right things from the wrong things. That’s strategy. The maturity model must take into account a capacity to be involved at a strategic level.
Process is fine, but we must have the people. That’s the missing ingredient.
So here we go – my stab at a four-level Advancement Operations Maturity Model:
Level 1: People are task-driven order-takers with basic skills. Processes are ad hoc and undocumented. Service is by ticket, first-in-first-out, with limited sense of relative importance. The team is characterized by inertia, exhibiting blind adherence to customary practices that are misconstrued as rules.
Level 2: Some skilled problem-solvers have been brought on. The team has developed an ethos of customer service and increased responsiveness to needs, with some prioritization. Still largely reactive, driven by frontline requests, sometimes lacking context. Increased documentation and standardization of processes.
Level 3: Operations staff are tactical partners, involved early on in Advancement initiatives, not just in the final execution. Engagement and fundraising objectives to be achieved are known, leading to more creative solutions. Process improvement is embraced as an ongoing imperative.
Level 4: Operations is a strategic partner, with involvement in shaping Advancement direction. The team’s thinking is forward-looking, characterized by proactive identification of opportunities, leading Advancement in new directions. The team has a comprehensive view of the organization. Ops knows where it fits in advancing the institutional mission.
Note that efficiency increases as the team moves up the ladder, but simple efficiency is overtaken by flexibility. Some things are too important to routinize. The ability to tell the difference is a matter of judgment, which is a property of high-quality, well-developed, empowered people.
As well, as we climb the levels, people’s view rises to take in more and more of the road ahead. We use this metaphor a lot when talking about BI and analytics maturity, but as we’ve seen, teams such as Gift Compliance can be forward-looking.
Level 1 teams are order-takers, which does not imply that Level 4 teams are order-givers. An ethos of responsive customer service, once gained, should be retained. Ops can be a strategic partner while still primarily playing a support role.
The difference is in outlook, an evolution from understanding the WHAT to understanding and embracing the WHY.
CoolOps Blog 